


Growing Back

by Pep_Squad_Levi



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Consensual Haircuts, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 00:06:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14964828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pep_Squad_Levi/pseuds/Pep_Squad_Levi
Summary: The battle they've just survived has ravaged Thor's body in more ways than one. He barely recognizes himself anymore.





	Growing Back

**Author's Note:**

> Set just after the Marvel movie Thor's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day when Loki comes to see Thor and we're robbed of a scene where they hug.

 

 

 

 

 

To be someone’s enemy means to know them. To be someone’s family means to know them well. So it stood to reason that Loki knew Thor better than anyone.

 

It also stood to reason that Thor knew Loki better than anyone. He might be the only person left who even knew him well. 

 

And here, now, with Loki sitting across the room, Thor recognized an agonizing shift in his brother’s posture. He’d seen it before, when the were children, though rarely. It was the thoughtful tensing of his whole frame that only happened when Loki fought against his natural proclivity for mischief and attempted something genuine. 

 

Thor waited patiently for Loki to arrive at whichever action he would take. The trickster he’d grown to know over the years or the man his brother was becoming would both be welcome in the stillness of the room. 

 

They’d talked for hours after Loki had proven his presence. They drank in honour of their father, their mother, the land they’d been raised on. They drank to the safety of their people and the people they’d lost. 

 

To Volstagg, to Fandral, to Hogun.

 

And then Loki had begun telling stories of his time in the Grandmaster’s inner circle. It was lighter talk, and they both had laughed. Thor had always enjoyed the bawdy tales of his friends, and Loki was exceptionally good at telling them. 

 

Now, however, they’d fallen into a lull of silence, and Thor was running his finger over the rim of his empty glass, waiting for whatever his brother would say. 

 

“I stole something from him,” Loki said eventually, standing up and crossing the room, “Something of yours.” 

 

“Oh?” Thor said, standing and meeting him halfway. Loki had turned his body away from him slightly, clearly defensive. He’d decided to be genuine then. 

 

“Yes,” Loki said, tentative, “I stole many things from him, of course, but the rest of those I will keep for myself I think.” 

 

He grinned and Thor laughed, watching as it put his brother at ease. 

 

“Well then, brother,” Thor said, gesturing to the man in front of him, “What did you steal back for me?” 

 

Loki cast his eyes down, and reached into the breast pocket of his inner jerkin. Whatever it was, it must have been small. Thor couldn’t remember anything of note that had been taken from him that this could be. 

 

Loki drew forth a small leather bundle tied with a cord. He held it out, his eyes still on the floor below him. 

 

“Here,” He said, softly. Thor thought he saw Loki’s hand tremble slightly. “I couldn’t get all of it.” 

 

Thor took the package and turned it over in his hands. It was light and thin. It hardly felt like anything. He tugged the cord free, and let the leather unfurl over his open palm. 

 

There, strewn in stark contrast across the dark leather, lay soft and well kept locks of golden hair. 

 

_ His  _ hair. 

 

Thor felt his breath shudder through him. 

 

He hadn’t given his hair any thought since it had been cut. He’d lost far more important things to mourn since then. But now, holding the beautiful strands of his hair all he could think of was sitting, trapped in that chair. 

 

Of how he had lost everything. How his father was gone, and his home was in danger. How he would be made to fight and die, or kill and live. How he had been beaten, and captured, and shock collared like a Midgardian dog. 

 

Then they had taken his hair. 

 

He had commanded they leave it almost out of instinct before he remembered that he was a possession here. That he was nothing more than an instrument of entertainment, and his permission wouldn’t have ever been asked in the first place. 

 

So he had begged. He had thrown himself to the mercy of a man who had none. 

 

_ Please, kind sir, do not cut my hair.  _

 

_ Please, sir, leave me something.  _

 

_ Leave me untouched here, at least, so one part of my body doesn’t bare the marks of this hell I’m living.  _

 

Jane had loved his hair. She’d said it made him look regal. That he’d stepped out of a storybook. She’d spend hours carding her hands through it, and laugh when he tied it up in a sloppy bun to keep it out of his eyes. 

 

He had screamed as the whirring blades had come closer. The furious sound of their movement nearly drowned out by the blood pounding in his ears. He’d felt them tug and pull at his hair, yanking it taught so that it could be sheared off. He’d felt the razors drag across his scalp, nicking him in places and making tears spring forth, unbidden to his eyes. 

 

After battles he’d taken time to wash his hair carefully. He’d take a carved ivory comb of his mother’s and a bottle of oil and work through the knots without hurry. He’d associated the action with the end of danger, with the security of victory. He had made it out alive. He would see the new day dawn, and he’d face the world again. He would need to take care of himself to do it. 

 

When he’d first bathed on the ship, after they’d safely escaped the collapse of Asgard, he’d spent nearly an hour just running his hands over his shorn locks. He kept feeling phantom wisps of hair on his shoulders. He kept expecting his hands to keep going through, not just break off into nothing. 

 

He’d told his mother he wanted to grow his hair long when he was nearing adolescence. The kind of age where he thought he ought to start making choices for himself about how he looked. 

 

“I want my hair long,” He’d said to her, “I want it to fly behind me like a cape. Just like the Valkyries in the stories. I want to look like they do.” 

 

He had loved his hair. He had thought he looked beautiful with it. It wasn’t his vanity or his pride that felt sore for losing it. It was the fact that they’d taken a part of him away. 

 

And Loki, who knew him so well, had thought to bring it back to him. 

 

He reached out and touched the shining strands.

 

“Thank you,” Thor rasped, his throat tight. Tears welled up in his good eye.

 

Loki gave a half-hearted shrug, like even he couldn’t be glib about this. After all, he’d carried this precious gift himself. He couldn’t pretend that it was nothing. 

 

Thor felt his shoulders shudder and he couldn’t stop himself sinking to his knees. He gripped the package, leather, hair and all, in his fist and pressed it against his forehead as the weight of what had been done to him crashed down upon his back. 

 

He was burned, and maimed, and sheared. He hardly looked at all like himself. He kept scaring himself in the mirror, couldn’t help thinking how different- how  _ ugly _ he looked. 

 

A soft, cold hand pressed tentatively to his bare shoulder. Thor leaned into it. 

 

“It’ll grow back,” Loki whispered, and Thor couldn’t hold back a shuddering sigh. “You’ll look like yourself again soon, brother, just wait and see.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Listen...... I may be mourning Thor's hair more than he is rn..... I fucking loved it....


End file.
